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Mick scowls at the boy who is valiantly trying to pretend he can eat his cereal just fine – even though it’s apparent he’s letting his breakfast turn soggy just so he can avoid the pain of biting down too much.
“I’m taking you to a dentist today,” Mick grumbles and bites into his toast. Axel raises terrified eyes to him and vigorously shakes his head:
“No. I’m fine. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Your cheek is twice the normal size,” Len comments from across the table, and Axel shoots him a betrayed wince.
“It’s not.”
“Have you seen yourself?”
“Fuck you,” Axel replies and frowns into his cereal.
It’s a good thing that Mick already knows him well – and that Axel has to go around him in order to get to the door. It’s not difficult to reach out with one hand and grab Axel’s shirt when he tries to make a run for it.
Axel wiggles as if he’s trying to shimmy out of his shirt in order to get free. Mick yanks him down into his lap and the kid whines pitifully.
“I hate you.”
“Okay,” Mick huffs – he doesn’t really care, because a) he knows Axel doesn’t mean it, and b) even if he did, Mick’s not gonna sit back and watch Axel suffer just because he’s a fucking idiot who laughs when someone’s shooting at him but hyperventilates at the thought of a dentist.
“I’m never blowing you again,” Axel tries again, and Mick raises an eyebrow at the kid.
“I wouldn’t want you to, if you let your teeth rot.”
Axel groans and struggles, but Mick’s arm around his waist is like a steel band clamped tight, and when Axel accidentally hits his swollen cheek against his boyfriend’s shoulder and it brings tears to his eyes, he calms down.
Mick has no doubt that he’s planning to bolt the moment a chance arises – Mick just plans to nip any chances in the bud.
………………
“What gives you the right to think you know what’s best for me?” Axel shrieks as he’s dragged up the stairs to the dentist’s waiting room.
Mick gives him an unimpressed quirk of an eyebrow.
“I’d say the moment you tried to jump out of a moving car doesn’t speak in favor of your mental faculties.”
“Fuck you,” Axel huffs his mantra of the past forty minutes. It’s not even that the drive to the dentist’s took that long – a good half of that time consisted of Mick trying to stuff the slippery bastard into the car and then calling Len for help in exasperation, mostly to hold Axel down in his seat while Mick circled the car, got behind the wheel and managed to centrally lock down all the car doors.
Mick sighs and doesn’t even repeat ‘I just want you to be healthy’ because the last two dozen times did not seem to get through to Axel’s mind anyway. Mick pushes him down to a seat in the empty waiting room, and Axel’s leg immediately starts jiggling as he looks around with wide, scared eyes. Mick crouches down in front of him, half because now Axel would have to mow him down in order to jump up and run, and also because he doesn’t actually enjoy seeing Axel terrified. However stupid and irrational his fear is, it’s real to the kid, and Mick clasps Axel’s cold, sweaty hands in his, trying to warm him up and offer support.
“I’ll go in with you,” he says in his best soothing voice. It’s not up to par, because Mick doesn’t often find himself wanting to soothe anyone, so it doesn’t really work this time either.
“Why don’t you go in alone and get holes drilled into your head,” Axel spits vindictively. Mick gives a mental groan and counts to ten. He wishes there was something more he could do or say, but keeping Axel here to get him some help is really the only option at the moment, if he doesn’t want to watch Axel’s eye swell shut.
The kid tries to run a couple times before the door opens and Mick unceremoniously drags him into the doctor’s office by the collar.
He warns the dentist about possible bites – she laughs at first, but adopts a fierce scowl when Axel’s teeth make painful indentations in her fingers. Mick gravely asks her if she’d like him to hold Axel’s mouth open. It’s mostly a threat to the kid, who shoots him a dirty look, but holds his mouth open in the end.
Unfortunately, she can’t do much with the swelling, so Axel’s sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and strict orders to come back once his cheek goes back to normal.
……..
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU FLUSHED THE PILLS?!”
“I don’t want to go back!”
Mick solves the dilemma by watching Axel take the new batch of antibiotics and kissing him for a good while to make sure the pills have gone down. That’s probably the only part of the process Axel doesn’t really complain about.
………
“Welcome back,” the nurse says dryly when she opens the door to let in a kid who is screaming at the top of his lungs that he’s JUST FUCKING FINE THANK YOU, and his… boyfriend or father or whatever, who is huge and angry and pushes the kid in front of him roughly.
Mick repeats his offer of holding Axel down. The dentist gives Axel a tight smile.
“I think we’re going to be just fine, do you agree, Axel?”
“I’m dropping a bomb on this place later,” the kid promises her, and she laughs nervously, no doubt taking it as a joke. Mick is going to keep a look on the place for a few days, just in case, because Axel’s nothing if not a vindictive bastard.
“Now open…”
“OW OW OW OW OW OW OW NO NO NO NO I’M OUTTA HERE!”
Axel basically flies over the seat towards the door. Mick reaches out and grabs him mid-air, stuffing him back into the chair.
“She hasn’t even touched you, for fuck’s sake,” he growls.
“But it hurts.”
Axel’s eyes fill with huge shiny tears and he turns up a tragic face at Mick. He would be lying if he said he’s not reacting at all to the sight of the kid in such a state, but he knows the little shit is just plucking at his heartstrings, so he scowls and keeps his hands on Axel’s shoulders.
The dentist licks her lips and then sighs:
“I suppose we could give you an injection, and you won’t feel a thing after that. Does that sound better?”
Axel mulls it over for a moment, then nods and dutifully holds his mouth open while she administers the anaesthetic. Mick can feel the kid’s pulse skyrocket and he takes a mental oath to always make sure that Axel brushed his teeth in the evening and fucking flossed, so they don’t have to go through this ever again.
A couple minutes pass while they wait for the injection to take; Mick spends the time running a hand over Axel’s hair, which is already damp from the cold sweat in his forehead.
“Alright… open your mouth now, Axel… that’s right-“
“OOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! FUCK!”
“Axel.”
“OW OW OW OW OW!”
“Axel.”
“FUCKING SHIT NO WAY I’M SITTING HERE JUST-“
“AXEL!” Mick hollers the third time and Axel shuts his trap, glaring up at him.
“What?! Are you getting off on this? Do you want to see me in pain?!”
“First off, she didn’t even do anything yet,” Mick grumbles. “And second you could not have felt it even if she did.”
“How the fuck do YOU know?!”
“Because I’m touching your fucking cheek and you can’t feel it,” Mick huffs and removes his finger from Axel’s cheek to wiggle it in his face.
The kid scowls.
“I felt it,” he huffs, but manages to open his mouth again.
…………..
“Can I have the blue one?” Axel points at the poster he’s been staring at while making noises reminiscent of a cat being skinned alive. The dentist looks over her shoulder and blinks in confusion at the poster advertising colored tooth fillings.
“Um, those are for kids, honey,” she explains, and Axel pouts.
“I want the blue one!”
“They’re not designed for adult teeth-“
“I WANT THE BLUE ONE!!!”
“For fuck’s sake, just give him the blue one,” Mick groans, exhausted and irritated and on the verge of burning the place down (maybe with Axel still inside, he’s definitely not feeling much love, especially since Axel somehow managed to get the dentist’s hand to slip until the drill buried in Mick’s hand, which is now wrapped in a layer of bandages).
…………
“Maybe I could have all my teeth filled with pretty colors,” Axel muses, a little high on (unnecessary) painkillers.
Mick just sighs and focuses on driving, before Axel decides to jump out to go back.
…………
Mick is busy disinfecting his stitched wound when the Flash walks in. He takes one look at Mick when he pushes his cowl off and raises an eyebrow:
“What happened?” he asks, and Mick knows that he’s basically asking if Len’s alright, so he acknowledges the speedster’s presence with an irritated huff and waits for the Rogue boss to walk out of wherever the fuck he’s been until now.
“Axel needed to go to the dentist’s,” Len says by way of hello, and Barry looks honestly confused, even as he opens his arms for his boyfriend and they exchange a quick kiss.
“Huh?” Barry asks afterwards. “Am I missing something?”
Len, the asshole, has the gall to laugh. Mick throws the bottle of disinfectant in his general direction and scoffs. Next time Axel’s teeth go bad, he’s absolutely pushing the duty of taking him onto Len and his fucking metahuman boyfriend.